To understand the value of a sitemap on your website, it may be of benefit to place internet marketing and advertising in perspective.

Before the advent of the Internet; before there were Internet businesses and Internet marketing, the main means of getting your message before the public was by several standard advertising venues. First was newspapers, then came radio, and then there was television. For each of these mediums, the techniques became stylized and solidified. Each learned what worked best for its particular means of expression and target market.

Then, along came the Internet:

Whether an internet business however, or a more traditional business, the goal has remained the same...get the message to the consumer.

Once all the high-tech trappings have been stripped away, that single goal remains the focus of internet marketing just as in the older, less technical settings.

Another thing which has NOT changed is the advertisement itself. The best advertisements offer a solution to a problem the reader might have. They are clear and concise. They make sense, or perhaps they amuse. The message can be approached from several different angles, and the writing of advertising copy is an entire field in its own right.

The same applies to the headline. The headline is the hook, which when properly crafted, gives just enough information to pique the curiosity of the reader while creating the image of the answer to the problem of the moment lurking just a little further into the copy text itself. Entire books have been written just on the subject of writing the right headline.

While the arts of writing good advertising copy and alluring headlines is still much the same, the means of getting the advertisement into the hands of the reader, or onto the screen of the reader's computer, has changed.

A newspaper was delivered to the door, or was hawked on a street corner. The reader might buy to read news and see information about a new car sale...or they might buy the newspaper to find out what cars were on sale. In any case, newspapers were easy to get hold of, and everybody knew how to find the classifieds or the obituaries, depending on their interests. Since a newspaper tended to be regional in nature, someone in San Francisco did not have to worry about whether or not the car in the ad was in New York or Boston.

Radio and television followed in the newspaper's footsteps, and much the same was true of them as has been said about newspapers.

The Internet has changed a lot about advertising:

First, the product offered by an internet business is not necessarily regional any more. Someone in San Francisco CAN buy a car that is located in New York or Boston.

Second, people from all over the earth can now create an online business and sell many of their products and services all over the world.

This means there are millions, perhaps billions of people trying to sell or buy on the internet at any given time. Each has their own major advertisement posted online, and this advertisement is called their website.

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